Driver Calls TV Show Tasteless From the Start

LOS ANGELES (CN) – A limo driver claims the new “reality” TV show “Nail Files” broadcast film of him suffering a diabetic attack as he drove its crew to the Los Angeles, though he and his employer asked them not to.

The producer of “Nail Files,” defendant 495 Productions, calls it “a show that ‘follows the beautiful and blonde entrepreneur Katie Cazorla as she takes her salon, The Painted Nail, to the next level,'” according to the Superior Court complaint. In his complaint, plaintiff Frederico Busby says the show premiered on June 21, and broadcast his diabetic attack in its second episode, “Sundance is a Big Deal.” Busby, a driver for Jackson Limousine Service, says he picked up Cazorla and her crew at her home in Sherman Oaks to drive them to the airport in November 2010. They were heading to the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Busby says he was early but the crew was running late so they had to rush to the airport. “On the freeway, Fred felt his blood sugar levels dropping, and he started sweating and feeling disoriented, perhaps at about the 90 Freeway exit area. Fred had planned to exit the freeway at or about the Howard Hughes Parkway exit, very close to where his symptoms started. Fred is a diabetic. The last things Fred remembered before he passed out were passengers screaming, passenger(s) yelling, ‘Is this guy drunk’, or something similar, feeling drowsy, and sweating. Fred believes he began to swerve at this point and thinks he fainted. Nothing like this had ever happened to Fred prior to this event,” according to the complaint. When he came to, Busby says, his boss was there, luggage was being loaded into another car and a cameraman for 495 Productions was filming him. Busby says the cameraman “actually asked Fred 2-3 times whether Fred would consent to 495 publishing (airing) the footage; and each time Fred emphatically and unambiguously said, ‘No’. The cameraman even asked Ellsworth Jackson twice if the footage could be aired; and Ellsworth Jackson, the owner and/or operator of Jackson, also emphatically and unambiguously said, ‘No’.” Busby says the crew knew he was having a diabetic attack because when he watched the unauthorized footage on TV, someone in the car said, “We stressed out the driver so much that he passed out.” He says the footage shows a staff member giving him a granola or energy bar to help him recover. Busby says the producers are not newcomers and should have known better than to air the unauthorized footage. He claims the defendants have produced numerous TV shows, including “Jersey Shore.” Busby says he felt the broadcast of his illness was “highly offensive.” He sued 495 Productions, Sally Ann Salsano, Jay Baxter, Shaun Zaken, and Sheonna Mix, alleging privacy invasion public disclosure of private facts, false light, appropriation of name or likeness, and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. He is represented by Kenneth Ralidis.